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Best bolognese
What is your secret to making great spaghetti bolognese?
15 Answers
Never ever rush a bolognese - it takes time for the flavours to come together. We normally cook ours for at least 3 hours minimum. It becomes a lovely rich meat sauce after that amount of time and it also gives time for the acidity of the tomatoes to cook out (also remember to add sugar when cooking tomatoes to counter balance the tomato acidity). Also, always use fresh herbs - it just ads a beautiful flavour and fragrance!
I have been told by some excellent Italian cooks - especially Sicilians - that traditionally you have to add milk to the sauce and let it simmer for a few hours to develop the flavours. I usually do this and get a lovely rich sauce where all the flavours have combined.
Slow cooked with chicken livers in the ragu!
Star anise, bay leaf, teaspoon of coriander. Leave all day in the slow cooker.
Start with a soffritto: celery, onion and carrot finely diced and lightly fried in olive oil. Then the minced meat(as finely ground as possible) until done and slightly browned, then a cup of white wine until reduced, and then only everything else goes in: of course fresh rosemary, fresh garlic, water and tomato concentrate(just a squeeze)and some of the other above suggestions..especially the long cooking time. That soffrito is the secret I think...
A pinch of cinnamon... shhhh
Using Italian tomatoes (canned). Even though they are canned, they have a better flavor than SA tomatoes. Leaving it overnight makes it tastier. And always use Italian pasta.
I always use more mince than required but if you want to be authentic, the tomato sauce must be the predominant part, not the mince.
No, Bolognese is a slow cooked meat based sauce, it has tomato in it but it should never be predominant. I personally like a more tomato-ey flavour, but it's definately not the proper way to do it.
The secret is to slow cook the veggies and mince with pancetta, which is like a fatty bacon (cured pork belly). I like the consistency of the sauce to be the same, so I put the pancetta through a mincer, and chop the veg really fine.
As someone above said, obviously, fresh herbs and fresh garlic and a swig of red wine make all the difference.
I always add a good sprinkle of ground cloves to the slowly simmered mixture.
Slow, slow, slow - the secret everyone has mentioned. Balance the acidity with a bit of sweetness. And wine, lots & lots of wine. freshly ripped basil at the end.
Now I'm hungry.......
Adding some diced bacon to the onion and garlic mixture definitely adds some flavour. Also agree with cooking with bay leaves. Think I'll make this tonight..
Anchovy paste
I use some red wine in mine, rather than white. I prefer the stronger flavour. I use the wine to deglaze the pan after browning off the minced beef, letting the alcohol evaporate before adding my tomato. Other than that, everyone else's suggestions of starting with a soffritto, adding pancetta, rosemary, bay etc. are all spot-on. And of course the long, slow cooking time. As far as I understand though, ragu alla bolognese started out as a mixture of slow-cooked beef and pork (sometime veal was included as well), which was then pulled apart (as in the increasingly popular "pulled pork"), and then further slow-cooked with the soffritto, tomato concentrate, beef stock and herbs such as bay and thyme. Traditionally served with tagliatelle or pappardelle, not spaghetti as is common these days.
Here is the perfect bolognese sauce recipe:https://club.cooking/recipe/bolognese-sauce/ Just try to make it, you'll not regret-100%)